On the Island (8 page)

Chapter 16

—

T.J.

Anna was standing next to the life raft. I handed her the fish I’d caught and stored my pole in the lean-to. “Is there anything in the water collector?”

“No.”

“Maybe it’ll rain later.”

She looked anxiously at the sky and began cleaning the fish. “I hope so.”

It was November, and we’d been on the island for five months. Anna said the rainy season wouldn’t return until May. It still rained, about every other day, but not for very long. We had coconut water, but we were still thirsty a lot.

“At least we know never to drink from the pond,” Anna said, shuddering. “That was awful.”

“God, I know. I thought I was gonna crap out my spleen.”

We couldn’t control the rain, but the Maldives had plenty of marine life. The coconut and breadfruit barely took the edge off our hunger, but the brightly colored fish I pulled out of the lagoon kept us from starving.

I stood in waist-deep water and caught them one after the other. None measured longer than six inches—an earring and a guitar string wouldn’t hold much—and I worried about hooking something bigger and snapping the line. It was a good thing Anna had packed a lot of earrings, because I’d already lost one.

Even though we had enough to eat, Anna said our diet didn’t have a bunch of important stuff.

“I’m worried about you, T.J. You still have some growing to do.”

“I’m growing just fine.” Our diet couldn’t have been that bad, because my shorts were down to my knees when we crashed, and now they were at least an inch higher.

“The breadfruit must have vitamin C, otherwise we’d probably have scurvy by now,” she muttered under her breath.

“What the hell is scurvy?” I asked. “That sounds gross.”

“It’s a disease caused by not getting enough vitamin C,” she said. “Pirates and sailors came down with it on long voyages. It’s not pleasant.”

Anna should have worried more about herself. Her swimsuit bagged in the ass, and her boobs didn’t fill out her top like before. Her collarbone stuck out and her rib cage showed. I tried to get her to eat more, and she made an effort, but half the time I ended up finishing her food. Unlike her, eating the same thing every day didn’t bother me, and I ate whenever I got hungry.

One morning, a few weeks later, Anna said, “Today is Thanksgiving.”

“It is?” I didn’t pay much attention to the date, but Anna kept track every day.

“Yes.” She closed her datebook and put it down on the ground beside her. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten fish on Thanksgiving before.”

“Or coconut and breadfruit,” I added.

“It doesn’t matter what we eat. Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what we have.”

She tried to be cheerful when she said it, but then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and put on her sunglasses.

Neither of us mentioned the holiday for the rest of the day. I hadn’t thought about Thanksgiving; I’d assumed someone would find us before then. Anna and I hardly ever talked about rescue anymore though—it depressed us both. All we could do was wait and hope someone flew overhead. That was the hardest thing, not having any control over our situation unless we decided to leave on the life raft, and Anna would never agree to that. She was right. It probably would be suicide.

That night in bed she whispered, “I’m thankful we have each other, T.J.”

“So am I.”

If Anna had died after the plane crash, and I’d been alone all this time, I wondered if I would have made it.

We spent Christmas Day chasing a chicken.

Early that morning, when I bent down to gather some sticks for the woodpile, I screamed like a girl when a chicken shot out of a nearby bush and scared the shit out of me.

I took off after it, but it disappeared into another bush. I thrust my hand in and felt around, but couldn’t reach it.

“Anna, that flapping sound we keep hearing is from a chicken,” I said, when I returned with the firewood.

“There are chickens here?”

“Yes. I chased one into the bushes but it got away. Lace up your tennis shoes. We’re gonna have chicken for our Christmas dinner.”

“It’s over there. I heard it. I’m going to kick the bush, so get ready to catch it when it runs out the other side,” Anna said, as Operation Catch a Chicken went into overdrive. We’d been tracking it for over an hour, from one end of the island to the other, and we were finally closing in.

“There it is,” she yelled, when it came flapping out of the bush next to me.

I tried to tackle it and came away with nothing but a handful of feathers. “Goddammit, you motherfucker!”

I chased after it. Anna caught up to me and we cornered it in a cluster of bushes. It started to wiggle through a gap in the leaves, but Anna lunged and held on to it. I grabbed its legs, pulled it out of the bush, and slammed it down on the ground.

Anna didn’t miss a beat. “Good job, T.J.” She patted me on the back.

I slit its throat and hung it upside down until most of the blood drained out, then pulled the feathers off, trying not to look at its head.

Anna cut it apart with the knife.

“This is not at all what it looks like at the grocery store,” she said.

“It looks fine,” I said. She totally mangled it, but we put the pieces on several rocks and placed them close to the fire.

She sniffed the air. “Smell that,” she said, as the chicken cooked.

When it looked done, we let it cool and then pulled the meat apart with our fingers. It was burned in some spots, and a little undercooked in others, but it tasted awesome.

“This chicken rocks,” I said, licking my fingers.

Anna finished her drumstick and said, “Yes, it does.” She threw her chicken bone in the growing pile next to the fire, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and said, “I wonder how many more chickens there are.”

“I don’t know. But we’re going to find every one of them.”

“This is the best chicken I’ve ever eaten, T.J.”

I burped and laughed. “No doubt.”

We picked the bones clean and spread our blanket on the ground, away from the fire.

“Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day?” I asked her.

“Christmas Eve. What about you?”

“Same. Sometimes Grace and Alexis beg to open them on the twenty-third, but my mom makes them wait.”

We lay side by side, relaxing. I thought of Grace and Alexis, and my mom and dad. They were probably having a hard time, celebrating their first Christmas without me.

If they only knew that Anna and I were alive and holding our own.

The rain returned in May, and Anna and I relaxed a little. But it stormed more often, and we couldn’t do anything but huddle in the life raft, listening to the crash of thunder while we waited for it to stop.

We had a bad one that brought down a tree, so I cut it into firewood with the handsaw. It took me two days, but by the time I finished, the woodpile filled the lean-to.

I went down to the beach afterward to cool off. Anna splashed in the water, playing with six dolphins. Wading in, I petted one of them on the head, and I swear it smiled at me.

“Six, wow. That’s a record,” I said.

“I know. They all came at once today.” The dolphins swam into the lagoon like clockwork, late morning and late afternoon. There were always at least two, but this was the first time there had been so many at once.

“You’re sweating,” she said. “Were you sawing again?”

I ducked my head under and shook like a dog when I came back up. “Yeah, it’s all done though. We won’t have to gather wood for a while.” I stretched, my arms aching. “Rub my shoulders, Anna. Please?”

“Come on.” She led me out of the water. “I’ll give you a back rub. Mine are world-famous.”

I sat in front of her and almost groaned when she touched my shoulders. She wasn’t kidding about being good at it, and I wondered if she rubbed the boyfriend down a lot. Her hands were stronger than I would have guessed, and she massaged my neck and back for a long time. I thought about her hands touching me other places, and if she’d been able to read my mind she probably would have freaked.

“There,” she said when she finished. “Did that feel good?”

“You have no idea,” I said. “Thanks.”

We walked back to the lean-to. Anna poured a capful of Woolite into the rainwater she collected in the life raft container, and swished it around with her hand.

“Laundry time, huh?”

“Yep.”

I had offered to split laundry duty, but she said she’d do it. She probably didn’t want me messing with her underwear.

She put our dirty clothes in the container and washed them. When she took them out one at a time and set them aside for rinsing, she said, “Hey T.J., where’s all your underwear?”

Speaking of underwear.

“It doesn’t fit anymore, and it mostly fell apart.”

“So you don’t have any?”

“No. I didn’t have a whole suitcaseful like some people.”

“Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“It was at first, but now I’m used to it.” I grinned and pointed at my shorts. “Totally commando here, Anna.”

She laughed. “Whatever, T.J.”

Chapter 17

—

Anna

We had been on the island a little over a year when the plane flew over.

I was gathering coconuts that afternoon, and the roar of the engines, so loud and unexpected, startled me. I dropped everything and ran to the beach.

T.J. exploded out of the trees. He raced toward me, and we waved our arms back and forth, watching as the plane flew right over our heads.

We screamed and hugged and jumped up and down, but the plane banked to the right and kept flying. We stood there, listening to the sound of the engines fading away.

“Did it tip its wings?” I asked T.J.

“I’m not sure. Did it?”

“I couldn’t tell. Maybe it did.”

“It had floats, right?”

“It was a seaplane,” I confirmed.

“So, it could have landed out there?” he asked, motioning toward the lagoon.

“I think so.”

“Did they see us?” he asked.

T.J. wore gray athletic shorts with a thin blue stripe down each side and no shirt, but I was wearing my black bikini, which should have been visible against the white sand.

“Sure, I mean, wouldn’t you notice two people waving their arms?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“They wouldn’t have seen our fire, though,” I pointed out. We hadn’t knocked down the lean-to, or thrown any green leaves on the flames to create extra smoke. I wasn’t sure we even
had
any green leaves in the lean-to.

We sat on the beach for the next two hours, not talking, straining to hear the sound of approaching airplane engines.

Finally, T.J. stood up. “I’m gonna go fishing.” His voice sounded flat.

“Okay,” I said.

After he left, I walked to the coconut tree and gathered the ones I’d dropped on the ground. I stopped at the breadfruit tree on my way back, and scooped up two, then put everything in the lean-to. I stoked the fire and waited for T.J.

When he returned, I cleaned and cooked the fish for our dinner, but neither of us ate. I blinked back tears and sighed in relief when T.J. wandered off toward the woods.

I lay down in the life raft, curled myself into a ball, and cried.

All the hope I’d clung to since our plane went down splintered into a million tiny shards that day, like a glass block someone pounded with a sledgehammer. I thought that if we could manage to be on the beach when the next plane flew over, we’d be rescued. Maybe they didn’t see us. Maybe they did, but they didn’t know we were missing. It didn’t matter now because they weren’t coming back.

My tears ended, and I wondered if I’d finally run out of them.

I crawled out of the life raft. The sun had gone down, and T.J. was sitting by the fire, his right hand resting limply on his thigh.

I took a closer look. “Oh, T.J. Is it broken?”

“Probably.”

Whatever his fist connected with—my guess would be the trunk of a tree—had left his knuckles bloody and his hand horribly swollen.

I went to the first-aid kit and brought back two Tylenol and some water.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not making eye contact. “The last thing you need is another broken bone to take care of.”

“Listen,” I said, kneeling down in front of him. “I will never criticize anything you do if it helps you cope, okay?”

He finally looked at me, nodded, and took the Tylenol from my outstretched hand. I handed him the water bottle, and he swallowed them down. I sat cross-legged next to him, staring at the sparks that drifted into the air when I dropped a log on the fire.

“How do you cope, Anna?”

“I cry.”

“Does it work?”

“Sometimes.”

I stared at his broken hand and fought the urge to wash the blood off and hold it in my own. “I give up, T.J. You once said, ‘It’s easier if you don’t think they’re coming back’ and you were right. This one’s not coming back either. A plane will have to land in the lagoon for me to believe we might actually get off this island. Until then, it’s just you and me. That’s the only thing I know for sure.”

“I give up, too,” he whispered.

I looked at him, so broken, both physically and mentally, and it turned out I had some tears left after all.

I checked his hand the next morning. The swelling had doubled the size of it.

“It needs to be immobilized,” I said. I grabbed a short stick from the woodpile and rummaged in my suitcase for something to wrap around it. “I won’t put it on tight, but it’s going to hurt a little, T.J.”

“That’s okay.”

I put the stick under his palm, and gently pulled the black fabric over the back of his hand, winding it around twice and tucking it underneath.

“What did you wrap my hand with?” he asked.

“My thong.” I looked up at him. “You were right; it’s totally uncomfortable. Awesome for first aid, though.”

The corners of T.J.’s mouth turned up slightly. He looked at me, his brown eyes showing a trace of the spark that had been missing the night before. “It’ll make for a funny story someday,” I said.

“You know what, Anna? It’s kinda funny now.”

T.J. turned eighteen in September of 2002. He didn’t look like the same boy I crash-landed in the ocean with fifteen months earlier.

For one thing, he really needed to shave. The hair was much longer than a five-o’clock shadow but shorter than a full beard and mustache. It looked good on him, actually. I wasn’t sure if he liked the facial hair, or if he just didn’t want to bother with shaving.

The hair on his head was almost long enough to pull back in one of my ponytail holders, and the sun had bleached it light brown. My hair had grown, too. It hung past the middle of my back and drove me nuts. I tried to cut it with our knife, but the blade—dull and nonserrated—wouldn’t saw through hair.

Although very lean, T.J. had grown at least two inches taller, bringing him to about six feet.

He looked older. Having turned thirty-one in May, I probably did, too. I wouldn’t know; the only mirror I had was in the makeup bag in my purse, which was floating around in the ocean somewhere.

I forced myself not to ask him how he felt, or if he had any cancer symptoms, but I watched him closely. He seemed to be doing okay, growing and thriving, even under our less than desirable conditions.

The man in my dream moaned when I kissed his neck. I slid my leg between his and then kissed my way from his jaw down to his chest. He put his arms around me and rolled me onto my back, bringing his mouth down to mine. Something about his kiss startled me, and I woke up.

T.J. was on top of me. We were on the blanket under the coconut tree where we’d lay down to take a nap. I realized what I’d done and wriggled out from underneath him, my face on fire. “I was dreaming.”

He flipped onto his back, breathing hard.

I scrambled to my feet, then went down to the water’s edge and sat cross-legged on the sand.
Way to go, Anna. Attack him while he’s asleep.

T.J. joined me a few minutes later.

“I am completely mortified,” I said.

He sat down. “Don’t be.”

“You must have wondered what the hell I was doing.”

“Well, yeah, but then I just rolled with it.”

I looked over at him, my mouth hanging open. “Are you insane?”

“What? You’re the one that said I was adaptable.”

Yes, and apparently quite opportunistic.

“Besides,” T.J. said. “You like to cuddle. How am I supposed to know what it means? It’s confusing.”

My humiliation level kicked up another notch. I often woke up in the middle of the night way too close to T.J., my body curled around his, and I had assumed he slept right through it.

“I’m sorry. This was completely my fault. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea.”

“That’s okay, Anna. It’s no big deal.”

I kept my distance for the rest of the day, but that night, in bed, I said, “It’s true. What you said about the cuddling. It’s just that I’m used to sleeping with someone. I slept next to him for a really long time.”

“Is that who you were dreaming about?”

“No. It was one of those weird dreams that didn’t make sense. I don’t know who it was, actually. But I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing, Anna. I said it confused me. I never once said I didn’t like it.”

The next day, when I came back from the lagoon, I discovered T.J. sitting beside the lean-to prying his braces off with the knife.

“Do you need help with that?”

He spit a piece of metal out of his mouth. It landed on the ground next to several more.

“Nope.”

“When were you supposed to get them off?”

“Six months ago. I kinda forgot about it until yesterday.”

That’s when I realized what woke me up, during the dream. A boy with braces hadn’t kissed me since high school.